Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler*, Mao....

ISAW

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So you acknowledge that whether god exists or not that everyone, atheist, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, Mormon and Scientologist all know that murder is wrong

This is a problematic line of argument and Ill try to show you whay and then deal with it.
when you state " Know that something is wrong" we have to be clear about what we both mean. I don't mean in a relativist sense wher people just make up what they see for themselves seems wrong -you know like Hitler did- Now to do this requires God or at least some form of overarching "natural law" which out atheistic comrades rejected.

but they're all capable of convincing themselves that out-groups are not deserving of the same treatment as their own group

This is basically a line of argument which is a variation on the theme of " we are the chosen people" . And you would be right. the thing is that when atheistic regimes replaced god or natural law with what they made up themselves a thousand times more people died.

and persecuting them to some extent, be it slaughtering them or just holding a mild dislike for them. They have all acted on these impulses and murdered others but you judge atheism to be the worst based simply on body count, you believe that someone who happens to be a christian who murders a thousand people is somehow more virtuous than someone who happens to be an atheist who murders a hundred thousand.

Im not putting a moral value on it. Im point to a scierntific measurement. Science has no values of it's own. Take it like an insurance company. Nobody likes tpeople to die but you have to judge what the premium will be on airline with 1000 deaths last year or airline B with one death! Which do you think the insurance company will judge has the higher premium?

Tell me, had the crusades (or any other such massacre carried out by christians) happened now with modern technology as these "atheistic" massacres did do you not think that the body counts would have been a hell of a lot higher than they were?

That is called an anachronistic argument. But as it happens non atheistic regimes had the same technology as atheistic ones and rarely resorted to the same tactics. and as it happens in Stalingrad the russians were reduced to fighting with shovels at one stage for all the modern technology. Also atheistic china had no modern technology in the past and killed over 100 million. so i would say NO I do not think the counts would be higher.

Or do you think that their christian morality would have allowed them to murder a certain number of people but would have made them stop at some point?

It would seem that Christianity never got anywhere near the levels of atheistic regimes no matter when or what technology. Maybe if christianity was overtaken by atheistic rulers this might have happened?

Can we not say that they are all equally reprehensible regardless of body count?

We can but you would then be dropping the scientific measurement in favour of what theology philosophical values inform us. Which is self defeating.

Do you really think that murdering one person for being different is somehow better than murdering a thousand? Surely the act of murder is wrong regardless of how many are killed?

And there you go! REsorting to a theological propositions

"the assertion is that religion has caused most of the killing and bloodshed in the world. There are people who make accusations and assertions that are empirically false. This is one of them."http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5527

It is true that it's possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the detail it produces evil because the individual people are actually living in a rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it can produce it, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We're talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God.

Apparently it was just an amazing coincidence that every Communist of historical note publicly declared his atheism … .there have been twenty-eight countries in world history that can be confirmed to have been ruled by regimes with avowed atheists at the helm … These twenty-eight historical regimes have been ruled by eighty-nine atheists, of whom more than half have engaged in democidal162 acts of the sort committed by Stalin and Mao …

The total body count for the ninety years between 1917 and 2007 is approximately 148 million dead at the bloody hands of fifty-two atheists, three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war, and individual crime in the entire twentieth century combined.

The historical record of collective atheism is thus 182,716 times worse on an annual basis than Christianity’s worst and most infamous misdeed, the Spanish Inquisition. It is not only Stalin and Mao who were so murderously inclined, they were merely the worst of the whole Hell-bound lot. For every Pol Pot whose infamous name is still spoken with horror today, there was a Mengistu, a Bierut, and a Choibalsan, godless men whose names are now forgotten everywhere but in the lands they once ruled with a red hand.

Is a 58 percent chance that an atheist leader will murder a noticeable percentage of the population over which he rules sufficient evidence that atheism does, in fact, provide a systematic influence to do bad things? If that is not deemed to be conclusive, how about the fact that the average atheist crime against humanity is 18.3 million percent worse than the very worst depredation committed by Christians, even though atheists have had less than one-twentieth the number of opportunities with which to commit them. If one considers the statistically significant size of the historical atheist set and contrasts it with the fact that not one in a thousand religious leaders have committed similarly large-scale atrocities, it is impossible to conclude otherwise, even if we do not yet understand exactly why this should be the case. Once might be an accident, even twice could be coincidence, but fifty-two incidents in ninety years reeks of causation http://creation.com/atheism

Sam Vimes

the rest of your post is a repetition of "people who happened to be atheists killed more people therefore atheism bad" argument so I'm not going to repeat myself, I'll just deal with this part:

ISAW wrote: »

This is a problematic line of argument and Ill try to show you whay and then deal with it.
when you state " Know that something is wrong" we have to be clear about what we both mean. I don't mean in a relativist sense wher people just make up what they see for themselves seems wrong -you know like Hitler did- Now to do this requires God or at least some form of overarching "natural law" which out atheistic comrades rejected.

No it doesn't. I know christians think it does but it doesn't. I know that I like living and want to continue living. I know that I also want my family to continue living. The corollary of this is that I do not want myself or my family to be killed. I may make exceptions to this conclusion for out-groups but the fact remains that I do not want my family to be killed and from this can draw the conclusion that killing is "wrong", at least in certain circumstances.

Now which part of that requires a god exactly?


edit: if you're looking for some kind of "overarching natural law", the "law" in this case is that no sane person wants to be killed. From this we can draw conclusions about the "rightness" or "wrongness" of killing. Someone who is arguing that it should be ok to kill but who does not want to be killed himself must be able to explain why an exception should be made for him and his loved ones. The only person who can make this argument without having to make such an exception is someone who has no more problem killing himself and everyone he loves than he has killing an out-group and such a person would be considered mentally ill. So your argument only works if everyone on earth is mentally ill. In any other scenario ethics can be derived quite easily without a god

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

You will also notice i posted the census on pre-war Albania which listed all the religious denominations in the country which didn't include atheism as more then one per cent?

I would notice that why exactly?

By your own definition an atheist State is one with an atheist government, not an atheist majority in the population. If that was the case then there has never been an atheist state.

More examples of you changing the goal posts when you get facts that contradict your position.

ISAW wrote: »

It doesn't. An atheistic one does however.

No it doesn't.

Why do you bother arguing concepts you clearly no nothing about. Atheistic means atheist in character. Atheistic literature is literature about atheism. Atheistic people are atheists.

Atheist != Anti-theist. There is nothing inherent in atheism that means it must spread atheism.

ISAW wrote: »

Yep care to name this list of atheist states that were not anti theist?
AS yo can see by the pre war census Albania DOES NOT COUNT!

Why exactly? Walk me through that one please :rolleyes:

StealthRolex

[<dunk>

Nick Dolan

ISAW wrote: »

The total body count for the ninety years between 1917 and 2007 is approximately 148 million dead at the bloody hands of fifty-two atheists, three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war, and individual crime in the entire twentieth century combined.

The historical record of collective atheism is thus 182,716 times worse on an annual basis than Christianity’s worst and most infamous misdeed, the Spanish Inquisition. It is not only Stalin and Mao who were so murderously inclined, they were merely the worst of the whole Hell-bound lot. For every Pol Pot whose infamous name is still spoken with horror today, there was a Mengistu, a Bierut, and a Choibalsan, godless men whose names are now forgotten everywhere but in the lands they once ruled with a red hand.

Is a 58 percent chance that an atheist leader will murder a noticeable percentage of the population over which he rules sufficient evidence that atheism does, in fact, provide a systematic influence to do bad things? If that is not deemed to be conclusive, how about the fact that the average atheist crime against humanity is 18.3 million percent worse than the very worst depredation committed by Christians, even though atheists have had less than one-twentieth the number of opportunities with which to commit them. If one considers the statistically significant size of the historical atheist set and contrasts it with the fact that not one in a thousand religious leaders have committed similarly large-scale atrocities, it is impossible to conclude otherwise, even if we do not yet understand exactly why this should be the case. Once might be an accident, even twice could be coincidence, but fifty-two incidents in ninety years reeks of causation http://creation.com/atheism

You know nothing about numbers dude. Nice and handy keeping it to the twentieth century and its dictators and increased world population. And anyway piling up a body count is sick and twisted.

ISAW

Sam Vimes wrote: »

the rest of your post is a repetition of "people who happened to be atheists killed more people therefore atheism bad" argument so I'm not going to repeat myself,

No!
Well I guess I will have to repeat myself. it isn't that they were atheists Christians communists it is that the regime was atheistic. as a philosophy to make a better world through the spread of atheism, atheistic regimes killed more than anyone in history.

No it doesn't. I know christians think it does but it doesn't. I know that I like living and want to continue living. I know that I also want my family to continue living. The corollary of this is that I do not want myself or my family to be killed. I may make exceptions to this conclusion for out-groups but the fact remains that I do not want my family to be killed and from this can draw the conclusion that killing is "wrong", at least in certain circumstances.

Now which part of that requires a god exactly?

The part where you start to base "right" and "wrong" on what you want rather than some objective value.

edit: if you're looking for some kind of "overarching natural law", the "law" in this case is that no sane person wants to be killed.

But basing morality just on what people want is problematic as i think I have pointed out.

some sane people are happy to lay down their lives for others. They want to do the right thing even if it means that they will be killed, tortured or crucified.

ISAW

Nick Dolan wrote: »

You know nothing about numbers dude.

Bald assertion and unsupported opinion!

Care to go and re read the thread and the references i gave and show how they are wrong then?

Nice and handy keeping it to the twentieth century and its dictators and increased world population. And anyway piling up a body count is sick and twisted.

Atheistic regimes are concentrated in but not exclusive to the 20th century. Please go and read my stats from feudal japan and China and ancient China. Not 20th century not christian godless regimes, and also in the hundreds of millions.

Please remember you have two ears and eyes bit only one mouth.

monosharp

ISAW wrote: »

You did NOT! i sourced the numbers for that. yu plucked out some wiki numbers and I went into it. I showed

- that 95 percent of the deaths were by disease not specifically brought to kill natives.

Never said it wasn't. This is not my argument. You've said this several times now and each time I have told you thats not my argument.

- that the original sources for Spaniards in the new world have nowhere near the size of an army capable of killing 100 Million people!

Never said it wasn't. This is not my argument. You've said this several times now and each time I have told you thats not my argument.

- that the numbers are estimates and they are not related to Christianity or genocide (except for some thousands of deaths certainly not millions or a hundred million)

Of course they are related to Christianity (using your nonsense logic)

Your argument is that atheist regimes killed X number of people. For that X you include people who died from disease, famine etc People who might have been arrested and put into prison for 1000 different reasons.

You have not shown a single solitary piece of evidence to say how many were killed for religious reasons, how many were killed because of atheism.

I am simply doing the same.

I challenged you to show where the original primary sources mentioned deaths caused by Christianity! You didn't rise to the challenge!

I didn't rise to the challenge because I specifically went to great lengths to explain to you that was not my argument.

But while you mention this, please show me the original primary sources which mention deaths caused by Atheism. You haven't.

You have taken deaths which occurred under atheist regimes and applied your own label to them.

Go on then! Care to how the sources that support the deliberate genocide of 100 million native Americans because of Christian regimes which had spreading Christianity at their core?

- Never said it was a deliberate genocide.
- Never said it was for spreading christianity.

You keep propping up these strawman, every single post yet I have consistently told you that these things are not my argument.

Now compare one with the other .
ALL Christian regimes = killed millions in 20 centuries

Hundreds of millions. WW1, WW2, Colonisation of the Americas, Australia, Africa etc.

Some Atheistic regimes = killed over 100 million in half a century.

Show me each regime with the total killed.

That is a factor of thousands of times worse!

No it isn't. You are defining the atheist number as anyone killed under a communist (atheist) regime for any reason whatsoever. You are including famines, prison camps, wars etc.

You are then defining the christian number as anyone killed by christian regimes where the goal was to spread christianity.

Go on then ! Care to show us three sources you supplied?

Are you going to through a childish fit again claiming ownership if I use the wikipedia one again ? :rolleyes:

http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2002/10/how-many-people-have-been-killed-by.php

"When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead."
[SH95]

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America

http://muweb.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/art/STANN-01.ART

Please bear in mind our previous discussions;

1. I'm using your ridiculous criteria to attach responsibility. I do not believe christianity is responsible for these deaths.
2. I know most of them were killed by disease, thats not my argument.
3. I know that these people were killed because of many reasons, spreading christianity a very minor one.

So bearing in mind, 1-4 is the same for what your doing with atheist regimes.

Christianity is a larger killer by far.

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

I would notice that why exactly?

Because I posted it in reply to your source given and quoted from it.

Pre war Albania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Albania#Independence
Monarchy stipulated that the state should be neutral, with no official religion and that the free exercise of religion should be extended to all faiths. Neither in government nor in the school system should favor be shown to any one faith over another.

This above isn't atheism!

when the atheistic regime came in they introduced state atheism and banned religion. i specifically defined "atheistic" regimes as those who promote atheism and suppress religion just as christian regimes promoted Christianity and suppressed any other belief or lack of belief.

By your own definition an atheist State is one with an atheist government, not an atheist majority in the population. If that was the case then there has never been an atheist state.

An "Atheistic" state is one promoting atheism and suppressing religion.

More examples of you changing the goal posts when you get facts that contradict your position.

Go back and show wher i made any different definition of an atheistic regime. it is you who are trying to pretend I changed the definition when I never did any such thing!

Why do you bother arguing concepts you clearly no nothing about. Atheistic means atheist in character. Atheistic literature is literature about atheism. Atheistic people are atheists.

MY definition is that atheistic regimes (whether the leaders secretly believe in god or the FSM) are regimes pushing atheism as a central policy anbd Christian regimes ( whether the leaders are atheists or not) are those promoting Christianity to the extent that they kill those not accepting their message. i never changed that definition!

Atheist != Anti-theist. There is nothing inherent in atheism that means it must spread atheism.

So what? Ther is nothing inherent in christianity that says "kill all who oppose your spread" either . The definition stands none the less.

Why exactly? Walk me through that one please :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Albania#Independence


Was not promoting State atheism and persecuting those that opposed atheism! . Only did when the totalist regime came in!

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

No!
Well I guess I will have to repeat myself. it isn't that they were atheists Christians communists it is that the regime was atheistic. as a philosophy to make a better world through the spread of atheism, atheistic regimes killed more than anyone in history.

And I as an atheist wholeheartedly object to the spreading of any form of ideology or belief system through oppression and violence against others and I can safely say that every single person I have ever met who identifies themselves as an atheist agrees with me. Your objection here is with totalitarian regimes that engage in violent oppression, not with atheism.

Tell me, have you ever spoken to an atheist who thought that the oppression and violence in these countries was a good thing?

ISAW wrote: »

The part where you start to base "right" and "wrong" on what you want rather than some objective value.



But basing morality just on what people want is problematic as i think I have pointed out.

some sane people are happy to lay down their lives for others. They want to do the right thing even if it means that they will be killed, tortured or crucified.

Yes some sane people are happy to lay down their lives for others, it's their life to lay down, but are they just as happy to lay down the lives of their loved ones against their will?


Ethics is a complicated area. I know it's a lot easier to imagine an all powerful being who has written absolute laws in stone but the world doesn't work like that, not even in the bible since the Jews were permitted to kill god's enemies but not each other. You originally talked as if the very idea of right and wrong is solely theological and there can be no ethical basis without it but now you're talking about the few possible exceptions you can think of. When people's rights conflict there will always be moral and ethical dilemmas god or no god but as long as human beings share common goals there will be a basis for ethics. This "overarching universal law" you're looking for exists simply because we are all human beings and we all want what's best for ourselves and our loved ones.

Zombrex

Sam Vimes wrote: »

And I as an atheist wholeheartedly object to the spreading of any form of ideology or belief system through oppression and violence against others

But Sam, you can't do that, you are an atheist :P

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

Because I posted it in reply to your source given and quoted from it.

Pre war Albania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Albania#Independence
Monarchy stipulated that the state should be neutral, with no official religion and that the free exercise of religion should be extended to all faiths. Neither in government nor in the school system should favor be shown to any one faith over another.

This above isn't atheism!

Oh for crying out loud

ATHEISM != ANTI-THEISM
ATHEISTIC != ANTI-THEISM

ISAW wrote: »

when the atheistic regime came in they introduced state atheism and banned religion.

Banning religion is not atheism it is ANTI-THEISM

ISAW wrote: »

i specifically defined "atheistic" regimes as those who promote atheism and suppress religion

Not to me you didn't as I would never subscribe to such a ridiculous notion of atheism.

If you want to ask for an atheist/atheistic regime and then after the fact introduce such a nonsense definition of "atheistic" that is your issue but it is, as I said, moving the goal posts.

ISAW wrote: »

An "Atheistic" state is one promoting atheism and suppressing religion.

No it most certainly is not.

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

An "Atheistic" state is one promoting atheism and suppressing religion.

So if a state is run by atheists and promotes atheism but does not suppress religion it doesn't fit your definition of an atheistic state


Do you think that if the members of the A&A forum on boards were to form a government they'd start to oppress and murder religious people?

Do you think that I secretly want to murder religious people and would given half the chance?

ISAW

monosharp wrote: »

Never said it wasn't. This is not my argument. You've said this several times now and each time I have told you thats not my argument.

You claimed christian regimes were responsible for 100 million deaths plus in America!

Of course they are related to Christianity (using your nonsense logic)

Care to show how over 100 million deaths are the responsibilty of christian regiumes just like over a hundred million are the responsibility of atheistic ones?

Your argument is that atheist regimes killed X number of people.

Atheistic regimes promoting atheism as a central plank of their policy and suppressing religion.

For that X you include people who died from disease, famine etc

again read the source. rummel originally did NOT use the Maoist famine but added it in later.
Disease famine etc. are not used unless they are specifically planned by the regime. If they happen by accident they don't count.

People who might have been arrested and put into prison for 1000 different reasons.

If a christian regime promoting Christianity put people to death for whatever reason then the number counts and if an atheistic one does it then it counts for them. Otherwise you can rule out Huge biggies for christians like the Thirty and Hundreds years wars and you will be left with about 20,000 deaths during the five centuries of the inquisition and about a million due to the Crusades and damn all else.

You have not shown a single solitary piece of evidence to say how many were killed for religious reasons, how many were killed because of atheism.

Because it isn't required. You are like a revisionist Nazi saying "prove it was because they were Jews" . The regime had a policy of promoting atheism and presecetuing religion that is what matters. I dont have to prove that everyone in it who killed someone or ordered an execution was an atheist no more than I have to prove every German in a camp was a nazi.

You have taken deaths which occurred under atheist regimes and applied your own label to them.

that label being "deaths that occured under atheistic regimes" and compared them to "deaths that occured under christian regimes"

In both cases specifically because of policies and under orders of the regime!

- Never said it was a deliberate genocide.
- Never said it was for spreading christianity.

I DID! Atheistic regimes committed deliberate genocide and specifically in pursuit of the
of the orders of the regime. In the Case of chrsitian regimes they pursued these aims whether or not they their commanders or their victims were christian or not, the regime had a goal of spreading christianity. In the case of atheistic regimes they pursued the
goals these aims whether or not they their commanders or their victims were atheist or not, the regime had a goal of spreading atheism.

Hundreds of millions. WW1, WW2, Colonisation of the Americas, Australia, Africa etc.

Not done by christian regimes but partly done by atheistic regimes. In fact as Rummel points out War comes in second place behind democide by regimes.

Show me each regime with the total killed.

Ther is a thousand lines of them in rummel I have shown you aready.
Go and read them!

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB2.1A.GIF
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB2.1B.GIF

No it isn't. You are defining the atheist number as anyone killed under a communist (atheist) regime for any reason whatsoever. You are including famines, prison camps, wars etc.

As i do for christian ones. If you want to include only figures for where christians only kileld those who weren't christian the Christian figure becomes only the inquisitions ( about 20,000 ) and the crusades ( about 1 million). You aeally think of the hundreds of millions
killed by atheistic regimes only one per cent were killed because of something other then personal belief which disagreed with Satate atheism? You really thin that in the French terror where an atheistic regime killed more in a year on the Vendee region of France then the Inquisition did in 400 years that the killing of these CATHOLICS was nothing to do with the atheistic french regime attacking religion?

You are then defining the christian number as anyone killed by christian regimes where the goal was to spread christianity.

Where a central goal of the regime was whether otr not the members believed in it.

Are you going to through a childish fit again claiming ownership if I use the wikipedia one again ? :rolleyes:

No im claiming you dint supply the wikipedia source I supplied it when I pointed out the source you were using without quoting contained figures for atheistic regimes which dwarfed those for Christianity but you selectively showed only the relatively small christian figures and ignored the HUGE atheistic ones!

http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2002/10/how-many-people-have-been-killed-by.php

"When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead."
[SH95]

What does SH 95 mean?
Hint: I showed you already and revealed the primary sources and challenged you to show where ANY of them say it was related to christian regimes!

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America

http://muweb.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/art/STANN-01.ART

Please bear in mind our previous discussions;

1. I'm using your ridiculous criteria to attach responsibility. I do not believe christianity is responsible for these deaths.

Nor do i but christian regimes certainly were responsible for some deaths. And you can add them all up and you will get into millions over 2000 years. Atheistic regimes over a century or two killed hundreds of millions.

2. I know most of them were killed by disease, thats not my argument.
3. I know that these people were killed because of many reasons, spreading christianity a very minor one.

If the regime in control caused or planned their deaths then that regime is responsible and the total goes to that regime. If it was a christian regime by all means add it to the christian total. NO CHRISTIAN REGIME was responsible for deliberately causing or planning the death of 100 million American natives!

So bearing in mind, 1-4 is the same for what your doing with atheist regimes.

Atheistic regimes WERE responsibe for deliberately causing or planning the deaths of hundreds of millions!

Christianity is a larger killer by far.

According to what source your SH95 above does NOT say that even the 60 million is caused by christian regimes!

ISAW

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So if a state is run by atheists and promotes atheism but does not suppress religion it doesn't fit your definition of an atheistic state

If it promotes atheism over religious belief it is suppressing religion by default.

Do you think that if the members of the A&A forum on boards were to form a government they'd start to oppress and murder religious people?

All I know is that every time they were given power in the past they did oppress people.
I also know that people like Dawkins look upon religion as something that should be attacked.

Do you think that I secretly want to murder religious people and would given half the chance?

I don't know. I think your actions and anti religious position will make that clear if and when you are given the chance.

If you say you do believe in the church having a say and a place in society and then I would not think you are into oppressing it.

Do you believe the church should have a place in society?

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

Oh for crying out loud

ATHEISM != ANTI-THEISM
ATHEISTIC != ANTI-THEISM



Banning religion is not atheism it is ANTI-THEISM

LOL. The point was made when I suggested any atheistic regime i knew of was anti theist and you said it wasn't true . I said "name one" you suggested albania. I showed you where they were believers and didn't oppress people. Then in came the totalist regime and banned religion and introduced state atheism.

You then tell me this was an anti-theist regime! Which is the point i set out to prove!"


I clearly defined what I meant by atheistic long ago.

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

Oh for crying out loud

ATHEISM != ANTI-THEISM
ATHEISTIC != ANTI-THEISM

Pre war albania was not atheistic or atheist!

when it became atheist it promoted state atheism and persecuted religion.

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

LOL. The point was made when I suggested any atheistic regime i knew of was anti theist and you said it wasn't true . I said "name one" you suggested albania. I showed you where they were believers and didn't oppress people. Then in came the totalist regime and banned religion and introduced state atheism.

You then tell me this was an anti-theist regime! Which is the point i set out to prove!"

I'm not telling you it was an anti-theist regime. Pre-war it wasn't. It was an atheist regime.

You are claiming it wasn't atheistic because it didn't oppress religion. This is based on your nonsense definition that an atheistic regime would be on what oppresses religion.

First of all that isn't what atheistic means.

Secondly you know this to be the case because initially you asked for an atheist regime that was not anti-theist.

If atheistic means anti-theist that question would be stupid.

This is just pointless back tracking and goal post shifting on your part.

ISAW

Nick Dolan wrote: »

You know nothing about numbers dude. Nice and handy keeping it to the twentieth century and its dictators and increased world population. And anyway piling up a body count is sick and twisted.

1. My figures you refer to in the above messsags are NOT 20 century so how can you claim I know nothing about numbers when you didnt even read the thread!

2. Care to Deal with the argument instead of personally calling me "sick and twisted"?


Originally Posted by ISAW :
Godless China slaughtered hundreds of millions before they heard about Christianity. history!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocid...nese_dynasties
historian Peter Perdue has shown that the decimation of the Dzungars was the result of an explicit policy of extermination launched by the Qianlong emperor.[95] Although this "deliberate use of massacre" has been largely ignored by modern scholars,[96] Perdue has called it an "ethnic genocide" and argued that it brought a "final solution" to China's problems on its northwest frontier for one century.[94] Mark Levene, a historian who specializes in the study of genocide,[57] has stated that the extermination of the Dzungars was "arguably the eighteenth century genocide par excellence."[97]

Then there is the tanguts 1252 19 millions killed by china.
http://www.mega.nu/ampp/rummel/sod.tab2.1b.gif line 455

Mongols 14th and 15th century -30 million dead - non christian!

http://www.mega.nu/ampp/rummel/sod.chap2.htm
For just those historical democide estimates I have been able to find or make here, pre-20th century democide has been around 16 to 17 times more lethal than war.



Yet godless china got through 100 million dead before the 20 Century and godless Japan 1570-1638 slaughtered (http://www.mega.nu/ampp/rummel/sod.tab2.1b.gif lines 428 to 433) 1.5 million including 238,000 Christians.

Four short periods in ancient china 221BC 220AD 618AD and 1626-55
Total losses for these four ~(not due to Christianity in China) 123 Million! - line 242


What christian regime ordered the deaths of numbers like these godless regimes?

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

If it promotes atheism over religious belief it is suppressing religion by default.

By that definition surely a religious state is then suppressing atheism and other religions by default no?

ISAW wrote: »

All I know is that every time they were given power in the past they did oppress people.

What you know is that every time a communist dictator was given power they oppressed people. And what we both know is that a great many people who were given power throughout history went on to oppress people, religious or not. Power corrupts the religious just as it does the non-religious

ISAW wrote: »

I also know that people like Dawkins look upon religion as something that should be attacked.

Then you should actually have a listen to what he says tbh. The only kind of "attacking" Dawkins wants to do involves words.

ISAW wrote: »

I don't know. I think your actions and anti religious position will make that clear if and when you are given the chance.

If you say you do believe in the church having a say and a place in society and then I would not think you are into oppressing it.

Do you believe the church should have a place in society?

If people want it to have a position in society then of course it should. I don't think any religious group should ever be in control of a country though for the very same reason that you don't want state sponsored atheism in control of a country. A theocracy is as bad an idea as an atheist regime. I'd rather we had neither. I quite like the secular democracy we live in

If you got into power do you think that you would attempt to suppress atheists and members of other religions from speaking out either violently or non-violently?

If not, what do you think is so different between you and them? Are you sure this isn't your very own example of seeing some out-group as different to you?

And I would hope you wouldn't because if you would then you would be one of the very people you are opposing.

monosharp

ISAW wrote: »

You claimed christian regimes were responsible for 100 million deaths plus in America!

Using your nonsense logic, Yes they are responsible.

What does SH 95 mean?
Hint: I showed you already and revealed the primary sources and challenged you to show where ANY of them say it was related to christian regimes!

Because the regimes were christian that caused it.

According to what source your SH95 above does NOT say that even the 60 million is caused by christian regimes!

Caused by Christians from christian countries in christian Europe.

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

What christian regime ordered the deaths of numbers like these godless regimes?

ISAW, imagine this scenario:

You and a friend go on an extended killing spree. You kill 10, your friend kills 200.

your trial comes and your defence is simply that you killed 20 times less than your friend

What would you say would be the chances of this defence being accepted by the judge?

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

I'm not telling you it was an anti-theist regime. Pre-war it wasn't. It was an atheist regime.

Ok I willing to admit I was wroing if thisis an exception. I don't even claim the populaton has to be atheist since it seems almost none were but let us see if the peopole ruling Albania were shall we?

In the time before independence the wiki entries list religious history. then we get to independence and then to the atheist regime in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Albania#Independence

coming up to the end of WWI you have:
The trend was taken to extreme during the totalitarian regime, when religions, identified as imports foreign to Albanian culture, were banned altogether. This policy was mainly applied and felt within the borders of the present Albanian state, thus producing a nonreligious majority in the population.

Banning religion BEFORE 1945 is clearly atheistic. But how about before religion was banned?

so this is between 1930 and 1944

Monarchy stipulated that the state should be neutral, with no official religion and that the free exercise of religion should be extended to all faiths. Neither in government nor in the school system should favor be shown to any one faith over another.

that isn't atheism it is just secularism like in the USA.

The source in wikipedia you supplied is from wapedia cut an paste
http://wapedia.mobi/en/State_atheism
and it uses this actual book [source22]:
The Albanians: an ethnic history from prehistoric times to the present
By Edwin E. Jacques

You would be referring to Zogo 1925-1939

which begins on page 382 of that book
Seven aims of this giovernment are listed on page 386 the seventh being enlisting the cooperation of all churches to eliminate religious intolerance. that is hardly atheism is it?

In fact on page 277 you may note religious communities preserved the only doccuments
in the Albanian language.


You are claiming it wasn't atheistic because it didn't oppress religion.

No it wasnt atheistic because it didnt have a policy of spreading atheism.

First of all that isn't what atheistic means.

I clearly defined what I meant .

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

that isn't atheism it is just secularism like in the USA.

And I think it's safe to say you'll have extreme difficulty finding an atheist who wants anything but a secular society. At least not one who isn't dismissed as a nut bag.

PDN

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Do you think that if the members of the A&A forum on boards were to form a government they'd start to oppress and murder religious people?

Murder? No.

Oppress? Yes, given that a considerable percentage of the regular posters on the A&A board, including one of the mods, stated that they approve of laws that would prevent women wearing whatever garments they choose. I find some of the views expressed on that board to be quite frighteningly illiberal.

Other posters on A&A, although thankfully they seem to be in the minority, have advocated censorship laws to be applied to the Bible, and laws restricting parents from exercising their basic human rights concerning raising their children in their religious beliefs.

I think any ideological group, be they atheist, Muslim or Christian, are not to be trusted when they are in the majority. Human nature is dangerous, and our best hope for a tolerant society is pluralism.

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

that isn't atheism it is just secularism like in the USA.

Whats the difference?

You argue that an atheist regime must oppress religion. You then ask me for an atheist regime that didn't oppress religion (ie wasn't anti-theist)

When given one you respond that it wasn't atheist because it didn't oppress religion. :rolleyes:

When this was pointed out you back tracked to argue that an atheist regime must spread atheism. Why exactly? Please point out the part of the atheist doctrine that says one must spread atheism?

This entire thread is basically you not understanding what atheism is.

Sam Vimes

PDN wrote: »

Murder? No.

Oppress? Yes, given that a considerable percentage of the regular posters on the A&A board, including one of the mods, stated that they approve of laws that would prevent women wearing whatever garments they choose. I find some of the views expressed on that board to be quite frighteningly illiberal.

The point about "prevent women wearing whatever garments they choose" is that a choice between wearing it and being at least shunned by their family and probably worse isn't really a choice. It's the same reason people object to the "free choice" people make to subject their female children to genital mutilation. But I don't know if I agree with banning the muslim dress, I haven't met that many muslims to know what their position is on it. I find it objectionable and oppressive of women but not necessarily so bad I would try to legislate against it. I think that in most cases gentle prodding until mindsets change is a lot more effective and better than legislation.

It's kind of ironic though that your first example of atheists oppressing the religious is in fact motivated by desire to stop what is seen as religious oppression

PDN wrote: »

Other posters on A&A, although thankfully they seem to be in the minority, have advocated censorship laws to be applied to the Bible,

If it's the thread I'm thinking of the person was being ironic.

PDN wrote: »

and laws restricting parents from exercising their basic human rights concerning raising their children in their religious beliefs.

Examples of people who wanted to bring in legislation banning the teaching of religion? I'm sure you'll find a few but then I'm sure (at least I would hope) that you would be equally shocked at some of the things that are said by a minority on this forum. the thing about minorities is that they aren't representative and they are often nuts.

Also, this is another case where the motivation is a desire to stop what is seen as religious oppression by allowing children to be old enough to make their own decisions before they're told that one specific religion is true above all others.

PDN wrote: »

I think any ideological group, be they atheist, Muslim or Christian, are not to be trusted when they are in the majority. Human nature is dangerous, and our best hope for a tolerant society is pluralism.

I fully agree. Could you tell ISAW that?

Nick Dolan

Ah see now your atheist / thesist line is Christian / Non Christian. If you lift that goal post and ill just grab this one here..... Your arguement is based on a crude numbers game. America has X amount more schools then Ireland, therefore they must be smarter. Correct numbers, Bad statistics.

ISAW

Sam Vimes wrote: »

And I as an atheist wholeheartedly object to the spreading of any form of ideology or belief system through oppression and violence against others

Good for you . And christians totally support these sentiments as well. but they also acceot that at some times in the past people thwarted such sentiments and misguided though they were tried to spread christianity by use of violence and oppression and that resulted in the death of a million people or so, just as people who identified with godless atheistic regimes directly were involved in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.

and I can safely say that every single person I have ever met who identifies themselves as an atheist agrees with me.

and i can safely say christians agree too but it didnt stop some people causing a million deaths in the cause of christian regimes nor did it stop godless regimes killing hundreds of millions.

Your objection here is with totalitarian regimes that engage in violent oppression, not with atheism.

Yes Indeed, totalitarian christian regimes that killed a million or two and totalitarian godless atheistic regimes that killed over two hundred million.

Tell me, have you ever spoken to an atheist who thought that the oppression and violence in these countries was a good thing?

I never spoke to a Crusader who killed non Christians but that doesn't mean that they were right. I have debated with fundamentalist atheists who derided religion and supported the suppression of it and claimed religion was abuse.

Yes some sane people are happy to lay down their lives for others, it's their life to lay down, but are they just as happy to lay down the lives of their loved ones against their will?

Apparently Abraham and Mary were.

Ethics is a complicated area. I know it's a lot easier to imagine an all powerful being who has written absolute laws in stone but the world doesn't work like that, not even in the bible since the Jews were permitted to kill god's enemies but not each other. You originally talked as if the very idea of right and wrong is solely theological

If you look at any argument in ANY thread on ANY group where i have mentioned "natural law" I suggest to you this is not true at all an that in every case i mention that "natural law" does not require a deity and may be secular. It does oppose relativism however.

and there can be no ethical basis without it but now you're talking about the few possible exceptions you can think of.

No. to be fair go an look wherever I mentioned natural law and you will see I mention secularism as well.

When people's rights conflict there will always be moral and ethical dilemmas god or no god but as long as human beings share common goals there will be a basis for ethics. This "overarching universal law" you're looking for exists simply because we are all human beings and we all want what's best for ourselves and our loved ones.

But "best" in the sense that isn't a relative concept based on "what I want" or "what I think is best"?
It is an objective thing in other words not made of ourselves?

ISAW

Sam Vimes wrote: »

By that definition surely a religious state is then suppressing atheism and other religions by default no?

Yes. A religious regime is. If the religion is on charge. Sauii Arabia or Byzantium maybe examples. But the point I also emphasised was the use of cohersion and violence. the Spanish inquisition against Jews for example. Or Stalin Mao or Pol Pot against Muslims.

What you know is that every time a communist dictator was given power they oppressed people.

Well atheistic ones did. I don't think smaller communes did. Monastaries. Kibbutez. i dont think Hugo Chaves is an oppressor but many in the US regard him as communist.

And what we both know is that a great many people who were given power throughout history went on to oppress people, religious or not.

that is true. so what? the point is that when atheistic regimes did it they fared far better at mass murder.

Power corrupts the religious just as it does the non-religious

That may also be true. But it would seem when it did in hiostory it happened less often and caused less death then with non religious regimes. Curious that isn't it?

Then you should actually have a listen to what he says tbh. The only kind of "attacking" Dawkins wants to do involves words.

good job he isn't in a position of power then eh?

If people want it to have a position in society then of course it should. I don't think any religious group should ever be in control of a country though for the very same reason that you don't want state sponsored atheism in control of a country.
A theocracy is as bad an idea as an atheist regime. I'd rather we had neither. I quite like the secular democracy we live in

Fair enough but the Holy See hasn't caused or managed any mass execution in several centuries now has it?

If you got into power do you think that you would attempt to suppress atheists and members of other religions from speaking out either violently or non-violently?

i am an anti authoritarian so I don't think i would get into power. I have been in positions of authority but not in sole authority. And I am horribly unorganised . My mind is a mess so I recon i would botch a holocaust even if I was intent on it. I have supported the rights of people that really make my blood boil. i don't really want to get into what national and international campaigns i have begun or followed since this isn't about me.

If not, what do you think is so different between you and them? Are you sure this isn't your very own example of seeing some out-group as different to you?

Again I don't want to go into ME but I would think Bob Altemeyers book "The Authoritarians" would give you a good idea of differences. And Leon Festingers work on cognative conflict. or dissonance as he called it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance


http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

you might also look into this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Dominance_Theory

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

Good for you . And christians totally support these sentiments as well. but they also acceot that at some times in the past people thwarted such sentiments and misguided though they were tried to spread christianity by use of violence and oppression and that resulted in the death of a million people or so, just as people who identified with godless atheistic regimes directly were involved in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.

and i can safely say christians agree too but it didnt stop some people causing a million deaths in the cause of christian regimes nor did it stop godless regimes killing hundreds of millions.

Yes Indeed, totalitarian christian regimes that killed a million or two and totalitarian godless atheistic regimes that killed over two hundred million.

I never spoke to a Crusader who killed non Christians but that doesn't mean that they were right. I have debated with fundamentalist atheists who derided religion and supported the suppression of it and claimed religion was abuse.

Jesus tap dancing christ man would you stop tallying up numbers as if those who kill a million are in any way less morally reprehensible than those who kill a hundred million. The only difference is how efficiently they carry out their evil

ISAW wrote: »

Apparently Abraham and Mary were.

Yes I find one of the problems with religion is that it can be used to exploit the fact that people will do things that they would never normally do in response to a command of an authority figure. You first mentioned the idea of people laying down their lives as a problem with non-religious ethics and the example you gave of someone laying down someone else's life has a religious motivation. Kind of scuppered your own point there mate.

ISAW wrote: »

If you look at any argument in ANY thread on ANY group where i have mentioned "natural law" I suggest to you this is not true at all an that in every case i mention that "natural law" does not require a deity and may be secular. It does oppose relativism however.

No. to be fair go an look wherever I mentioned natural law and you will see I mention secularism as well.



But "best" in the sense that isn't a relative concept based on "what I want" or "what I think is best"?
It is an objective thing in other words not made of ourselves?

It all depends on what you mean by "relatvism". Something I often find is thats some religious people use the word to mean "people doing whatever the hell they want at all times regardless of who they hurt". So what exactly do you mean by "relativism" and in what way it is different to a "natural law"? To me the word natural law means something like the law of gravity....

ISAW

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I fully agree. Could you tell ISAW that?

Tell me what? that in your pluralist society you accept slapping kids or that you want it legislated against because it doesnt fit with your ideals?

Or that everyone should have a right to free speech - except people you might not agree with like Holocaust deniers and they should be legislated against?

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

Yes. A religious regime is. If the religion is on charge. Sauii Arabia or Byzantium maybe examples. But the point I also emphasised was the use of cohersion and violence. the Spanish inquisition against Jews for example. Or Stalin Mao or Pol Pot against Muslims.

Well atheistic ones did. I don't think smaller communes did. Monastaries. Kibbutez. i dont think Hugo Chaves is an oppressor but many in the US regard him as communist.

that is true. so what? the point is that when atheistic regimes did it they fared far better at mass murder.

That may also be true. But it would seem when it did in hiostory it happened less often and caused less death then with non religious regimes. Curious that isn't it?

good job he isn't in a position of power then eh?

Fair enough but the Holy See hasn't caused or managed any mass execution in several centuries now has it?

i am an anti authoritarian so I don't think i would get into power. I have been in positions of authority but not in sole authority. And I am horribly unorganised . My mind is a mess so I recon i would botch a holocaust even if I was intent on it. I have supported the rights of people that really make my blood boil. i don't really want to get into what national and international campaigns i have begun or followed since this isn't about me.

Again I don't want to go into ME but I would think Bob Altemeyers book "The Authoritarians" would give you a good idea of differences. And Leon Festingers work on cognative conflict. or dissonance as he called it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

you might also look into this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Dominance_Theory

So you acknowledge that religious regimes have engaged in very very evil deeds throughout the centuries and are comparing this to an atheistic regime, something that no one posting on this thread supports, simply in terms of body count.

Is your point that you prefer a religious regime because then the government may not be as likely to knock my door down and shoot me in the head?

Or are we both making the same point, that neither an atheistic nor a religious regime is any good for anyone?

ISAW

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Jesus tap dancing christ man would you stop tallying up numbers as if those who kill a million are in any way less morally reprehensible than those who kill a hundred million. The only difference is how efficiently they carry out their evil

Oh so atheistic regimes are more efficient at mass murder. whay is that?

and as regards the numbers it began when Monosharp suggested I look at history and tally the numbers.

Yes I find one of the problems with religion is that it can be used to exploit the fact that people will do things that they would never normally do in response to a command of an authority figure.

and this never happens in non christian regimes like Naziism or atheistic regimes in russia and china????
Why is it that in the atheist ones it happens more?

You first mentioned the idea of people laying down their lives as a problem with non-religious ethics

I gave it as an counter example of a claim like "why would anyoine want to be harmed or die" I was suggesting that some people think about things other then what they want for themselves which is what the basis of the example was which i was countering.

and the example you gave of someone laying down someone else's life has a religious motivation. Kind of scuppered your own point there mate.

Nope selflessness may be religiously motivated.

It all depends on what you mean by "relatvism". Something I often find is thats some religious people use the word to mean "people doing whatever the hell they want at all times regardless of who they hurt". So what exactly do you mean by "relativism" and in what way it is different to a "natural law"?

Had this out on AA and her before.

Child abuse is always wrong. Relativism would claim nothing is always wronmg it depends on the context. absolute morals don't exist they would say.

To me the word natural law means something like the law of gravity....

That too. But natural law as in "sex between and adult and a child is always wrong"

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

Tell me what? that in your pluralist society you accept slapping kids or that you want it legislated against because it doesnt fit with your ideals?

Or that everyone should have a right to free speech - except people you might not agree with like Holocaust deniers and they should be legislated against?

I happen to think that a light slap does a kid no harm, although it's unnecessary and bad parenting.

And I support freedom of speech for all. Trying to stop people from talking only allows them to proudly wear their persecution complexes. Holocaust deniers should be encouraged to speak so that everyone can see they're talking out of their arses

What's your point?

ISAW

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So you acknowledge that religious regimes have engaged in very very evil deeds throughout the centuries

Yes. I cited several examples.

and are comparing this to an atheistic regime, something that no one posting on this thread supports, simply in terms of body count.

Monosharp prompted it by saying i should look at all the conflicts in history and produce a score.

Is your point that you prefer a religious regime because then the government may not be as likely to knock my door down and shoot me in the head?

the point is atheistic regimes contributed thousands of times the death rate and shag all for civilization!

Or are we both making the same point, that neither an atheistic nor a religious regime is any good for anyone?

Yes but im not aware of atheist countries without atheistic regimes . I know whenever it was tried it resulted in carnage and left nothing for civilization. Religion however had contributed and has not be violent with some notable exceptions and even then at a much lower level.

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

Oh so atheistic regimes are more efficient at mass murder. whay is that?

I don't know, maybe christians are lazy or didn't have access to the same technology. It most certainly is nothing to do with their morality. Someone who kills a million is no more moral than someone who kills a hundred million

ISAW wrote: »

and this never happens in non christian regimes like Naziism or atheistic regimes in russia and china????

Never said that. In fact I said doing things they wouldn't do in response to an authority figure's command is a human characteristic. Religion is just one of the things that can be used to exploit it, but one of the most effective since it teaches that the whole of morality is the authority of god and what people say is god's will isn't necessarily god's will

ISAW wrote: »

I gave it as an counter example of a claim like "why would anyoine want to be harmed or die" I was suggesting that some people think about things other then what they want for themselves which is what the basis of the example was which i was countering.

I'm not getting your point....

ISAW wrote: »

Nope selflessness may be religiously motivated.

Um, yes it can but that doesn't really have anything to do with my point, that the example you gave of someone choosing to lay down someone else's life had a religious motivation.

ISAW wrote: »

That too. But natural law as in "sex between and adult and a child is always wrong"

How can such a thing be a "natural law" without some kind of intelligent being defining it thus and informing us of this law? I don't see how such a thing can exist independently of a god as you seem to suggest.

ISAW wrote: »

Had this out on AA and her before.

Child abuse is always wrong. Relativism would claim nothing is always wronmg it depends on the context. absolute morals don't exist they would say.

Firstly that's a bad example because the word abuse is an inherently negative term so yes I could say it's always wrong and secondly, everything depends on context. The world is not black and white, it is not absolute. The question here is: can you think of any context where child abuse might not be considered wrong? The only one I can think of is that someone has a gun to the heads of my entire family and is threatening to kill them if I don't abuse my child. In that case the good result of saving the lives of my entire family could be said to outweigh the temporary pain caused by the abuse. Any others?

And if the rightness or wrongness of something is said to depend on context but no one can define any context where it is not considered wrong, what's the practical difference between that and it being absolutely wrong?

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

Yes but im not aware of atheist countries without atheistic regimes

Sweden. ~80% no belief in god

ISAW wrote: »

I know whenever it was tried it resulted in carnage and left nothing for civilization. Religion however had contributed and has not be violent with some notable exceptions and even then at a much lower level.

What I know is that any time an ideology has taken over a society and oppressed the inhabitants it resulted in carnage and left nothing for society. And communist dictatorships are no exception. Sorry I meant to say atheist regimes since we're forgetting the fact that these were communist dictatorships for the purposes of vilifying atheism

Sam Vimes

ISAW, can you give me an example of an atheist regime that oppressed and murdered people that wasn't also a communist dictatorship? The thing is that all these problems you're talking about are things that I associate with communist dictatorships and dictatorships in general. Are you sure you're not blaming atheism for the crimes of communism, something that happens to be atheistic but would in all likelihood be just as bad if it wasn't?

monosharp

ISAW wrote: »

Monosharp prompted it by saying i should look at all the conflicts in history and produce a score.

Monosharp said here on his first post and later again in several posts that he thinks the whole argument is idiotic. I just tried to point out to you how idiotic it was by showing you christian numbers

StealthRolex

Sam Vimes wrote: »

And I think it's safe to say you'll have extreme difficulty finding an atheist who wants anything but a secular society. At least not one who isn't dismissed as a nut bag.

Richard Dawkins ???

ISAW

Nick Dolan wrote: »

Ah see now your atheist / thesist line is Christian / Non Christian. If you lift that goal post and ill just grab this one here..... Your argument is based on a crude numbers game. America has X amount more schools then Ireland, therefore they must be smarter. Correct numbers, Bad statistics.

You have it the wrong way round! There are about 1,500 million Christians in the world spread over all the world. Leaving out China where religion is growing quicker than the economy ( we can put it in but you would then have to deal with the hundreds of millions killed by the Chinese regime alone) atheists are in the tens of millions at best.

so Christianity is the worlds biggest religion ( but other religions are large too) and atheism is tiny in comparison . Yet atheists regimes killed far more people. America has more schools because it has more people if they had ten million people and Ireland had 1,000 million and America still had more schools I think I would think something is odd about that.

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

Whats the difference?

You argue that an atheist regime must oppress religion. You then ask me for an atheist regime that didn't oppress religion (ie wasn't anti-theist)

When given one you respond that it wasn't atheist because it didn't oppress religion. :rolleyes:

nope. wasn't atheistic but if it was atheist show me it was. It turns out it was not endorsing any religion but it was not saying "there is no god" either. It was only when it became State atheims i.e. that the regime said atheism was a national value that it became atheistic ( i.e. that not just having atheism but spreading it and persecuting those that opposed it ) . so it wansn't just atheist it was atheistic when it became atheist. It wasnt atheist or atheistic before that.

When this was pointed out you back tracked to argue that an atheist regime must spread atheism. Why exactly? Please point out the part of the atheist doctrine that says one must spread atheism?

No no! Atheistic regimes say they should spread atheism. State ateism does not have to have this spreading of the doctrine as a requisite but I still do not know of any regime run by atheists that didn't have it.

ISAW

monosharp wrote: »

Monosharp said here on his first post and later again in several posts that he thinks the whole argument is idiotic. I just tried to point out to you how idiotic it was by showing you christian numbers

You asked me to show you based on history books. Don't you remember?

You showed me made up numbers which you selected from Wikipedia by doctoring the source and selecting out what you wanted to show and ignoring the rest . That is called "biased sampling" and you hid the bias by not revealing the source. I then reveled the source and looked for the primary source for your 100 million figure in America. The primary sources say nothing about Christianity being the cause and paint an entirely different picture.

Sam Vimes

StealthRolex wrote: »

Richard Dawkins ???

Richard Dawkins doesn't want a secular society? news to me

Or were you just calling him a nut bag? I can tell you that if half of the things that I've seen religious people claim about him were true he would be a nut bag. Luckily they're not

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

It turns out it was not endorsing any religion but it was not saying "there is no god" either.

And?

Why does an atheist regime have to say there is no god?

I'm an atheist and I don't say there is no god

Once again you dazzle us with your inability to comprehend the subject you are debating. :rolleyes:

Atheism is the rejection of theistic belief. The Albanian government rejected the original position of Muslim belief and stipulated the government would have no religion.

I appreciate you would much prefer we were all the caricatureyou have in your head ISAW but if your motivation here is to genuinely convince us of your point it would help if you didn't rely on them as much as you do.

Your issue with pre-war Albania is that they weren't anti-theist, they didn't oppress religions, and as such you can't reconcile that with the caricature of what an atheist is.

ISAW wrote: »

No no! Atheistic regimes say they should spread atheism.

Oh they do do they. Why not go the whole hog there ISAW, atheistic regimes say they kill priests, name me an atheistic regime that didn't kill priests :rolleyes:

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

And?

Why does an atheist regime have to say there is no god?

Hint: What is the difference between an atheist regime and one which isn't atheist?

I'm an atheist and I don't say there is no god

You don't run the country and neither do they thank God.

Once again you dazzle us with your inability to comprehend the subject you are debating.

Once again you depart from to subject to involve yourself in personal attack.

Atheism is the rejection of theistic belief. The Albanian government rejected the original position of Muslim belief and stipulated the government would have no religion.

Not endorsing a single religion does not mean saying "no religion" . they clearly accepted all religions. It was only when the totalist regime got more power that they banned religion.
Ireland does not have an established state endorced religion sine the 1970s but it isn't atheist!

I appreciate you would much prefer we were all the caricatureyou have in your head ISAW

Id appreciate if you confined your remarks to the subject and not to ad hominal personal comments about me which are off topic.

but if your motivation here is to genuinely convince us of your point it would help if you didn't rely on them as much as you do.

MY motivation isn't at issue. Please STOP trying to turn the issue into what I believe or why I post!

Your issue with pre-war Albania is that they weren't anti-theist,

They were not oppressing religions or atheist as far as I know. they didnt say "no religion" was a superior position justy that they supported no particular religion. They dint say they didnt believe in God and that was not the state position as far as I know.

they didn't oppress religions, and as such you can't reconcile that with the caricature of what an atheist is.

I never claimed all atheists oppressed religion. i claimed atheistic regimes promoted atheism and as far as I knew any that did also by default suppressed religion. I asked for examples of atheist regimes which didnt oppress religion. You suggested Zogs albania.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zog_of_Albania
Zog himself swore an oath on the Bible and the Qur'an (the king being Muslim) in an attempt to unify the country.

It seems Zogu was not an atheist!

What he did was get rid of a fundamentalist Islam or fundamentalist Christianity. that isnt an atheistic regime promoting atheism!

Oh they do do they. Why not go the whole hog there ISAW, atheistic regimes say they kill priests, name me an atheistic regime that didn't kill priests :rolleyes:

I'm not aware of any that didn't kill priests. Stalinists did it and Maoists and Pol Pot's certainly did.

By the way: you asked before
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65547872&postcount=61

And you were answered:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65551438&postcount=63
and
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65551438&postcount=63

In short you are saying all regimes were not atheist.
But I am pointing out to you that:

1. atheistic ones caused mare death then all the others
2. Atheistic regimes contributed less then the others
3. Non atheistic regimes were sometimes benign.

And the FACT is that people like Dawkins for example DO VIEW atheism as a "better way" and want religious people removed from any authority. Maybe some atheists couldnt care less and want to sit on their hands and do nothing, which can be criticised in itself but I am specifically talking here about evangalising fundamental atheists such as those like Dawkins who subscribe to scientism.

If you promote atheism as a better way for society and you promote removing religious believers from positions of authority then you are one of these people.

With respect to the ridicule you are aiming at me,
I would especially draw your attention to:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65558811&postcount=75

which by the way is NOT an admission of any particular belief held by me but is based on your assumption that people like me represent such a belief.

So you admit Dawkins is anti-theist? And the supporters of scientism are? And fundamentalist proselytising atheists are?
And you are not a supporter of any of their positions? Well then having admitted that I don't think mainstream religious people will view you as a danger or a threat. If and when you begin to attack them and try to ridicule them they may however reclassify you and suggest you were dishonest.

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

What he did was get rid of a fundamentalist Islam or fundamentalist Christianity. that isnt an atheistic regime promoting atheism!

You have gone to great pains to point out the difference between fundamentalist and mainstream Christianity, to attempt to get people to stop conflating the two because you do not agree with the behaviour of fundamentalist Christians any more than I do, you don't want to be associated with them and of course because Christianity is not necessarily fundamentalist

But when it comes to atheism you make no such distinction. Why is that?

Would you consider the possibility that what you are doing is the equivalent of insisting that all Christians are creationists and that any "regime" run by Christians would ban the teaching of evolution etc?

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

I'm not aware of any that didn't kill priests. Stalinists did it and Maoists and Pol Pot's certainly did.

Are you aware of any that wasn't a communist dictatorship as well as being what you call an atheist regime?

Henry McConville

Atheist? The Catholic Church killed more people than Hitler! Religion is the greatest cause of suffering on earth, always has and always will.